


PROJECT: WIDEAWAKE

by nine_day_queen



Series: Earth-199998 [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Young Avengers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-02-24 16:23:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2588192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nine_day_queen/pseuds/nine_day_queen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy remembers being hopeful.<br/>He remembers happy.<br/>Freedom.<br/>Tommy is none of those things now.<br/>He wasn't always a bad person. He did bad things, but he wasn't bad, not before. He wanted to be good, tried to be good, tried so hard to be good. But all anyone ever saw was a kid from a broken home, with a past of petty crime, and weird tendencies. They didn't see him as someone who needed help, only someone who they needed to lock up.<br/>Three years down the line, from the first time he's caught, he's inclined to believe them, to believe he's a monster, a thing. Three years down the line, he's a facility for people like him, for special case murderers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fireworks and Apple Pie

**Author's Note:**

> There's a mention of a character death, spoilers: it's a small child. Fair warning and all.

 

 

 

Subject: Shepherd, Thomas

Date of Birth: 06/21/98

Citizenship: American

Family: Mary Shepherd, Frank Shepherd.

Location: New Jersey State Institution for Troubled Youth

Enrollment Date: 07/05/11

Status: Active Mutant

Clearance Level: Alpha  
Abilities: Superior speed, other promised abilities to be determined  
Weaknesses: His humanity can be used against him; is partial to protecting the boy in the next cell, should investigate.

 

~*~*~*~

 

"What happened today?" Tommy croaks out, to the hallucinatory boy sitting across from him. Figures it'd take four months for him to break, for his guilt to crack over and his masochism to create yet another person he can't ... his imagination was supposed to let him survive this. He doesn't deserve to survive this. It takes the boy a few minutes to respond, to wake up, to shake off the drugs they use to transport them from cage to cage. Eventually, the boy shrugs and somehow, he can see how much it hurts, can feel the phantom twinge of pain in his own shoulder.

"I don't think they understand," he mumbles, feverishly. "I'm not supposed to be here. I can't do  _anything_."

That's not the problem, Tommy thinks bitterly. "It's not that you can't, it's that you  _could_ ," he explains, again to the mirage. "It's why we're all here."

"You can move fast. I can't."

Tommy looks away.

**_Teach me how to run like you, Tom, please?_ **

"Moving fast is stupid anyway," he replies brusquely. "I'm going to bed."

"Lights out is still an hour away."

"Don't care," he spits out, turning away from the boy, from the stupid kid who reminds Tommy of himself, a year or so ago. Hopeful.

The boy reminds him of hope.

 

~*~*~*~

 

"Tom," the tiny girl says, tugging on his sleeve. "Tom, where are you going?"

"Don't worry, Lily buddy," he mouths, slowly and without sound, trying to disarm the girl with a smile. If he could just prove he wasn't ... "I'll be right back."

"Don't bring the bright car lights. They hurt my eyes." She pauses, reaches for her terrycloth bunny, supposedly the last thing she had from her family, from her dead family. Why would anyone try to guilt him like this, tonight of all nights? "Take Sophie. She'll take care of you."

He stares at the old, worn, loved toy. The guys would rib him if he took it. He glances up at Lilly, who looks close to tears. "But who will protect you?" he bullshits, because that's who he is, some dumb teenager who lies to his deaf foster sister, to his foster family, to his last chance at freedom, to being treated like a normal person.

It's the big house for sure if you get caught again, Tommy, he reminds himself, as Lily blinks away tears.

"But Sophie told me you need to stay. Here," she signs fervently.

"Go back to bed, Lil," he sighs, taking the raggedy toy. "I'll be back in time for pancakes, okay?"

"The fire workers are too bright. What if there's a fire?" she asks him, as if reading his mind.

"You'll be fine," he lies, lies, lies, because that's who he is: a liar.

  

~*~*~*~

 

Tommy jolts awake, the freezing water filling his lungs, filling, filling, forcing out the air, forcing out his ... power. He is building up to something, to short circuiting, to ... trauma. He can't breathe, needs to ... needs ... air. He can't ... he needs ... he can't ... his hands ... he can't ...

_**He can't ...** _

The facility blurs past him, blurs into nothingness, nothing but the pain, but the fear of death, but the inevitability of it

Faster, faster, go faster, he screams at himself, urging himself faster, quicker, quicker than light, than sound, than anything, quick enough to save ...

"LET HIM GO!" Tommy shouts, buzzing with anger, the collar around his neck ineffective, thankfully, mercifully, as he shoves the lab coats out of the way, jabbing at buttons, trying to get one of the subjects, one of his caged companions, out of the floor's water tank.

As the tank's lid slowly retracts and the kid's fingers grip the tiny ledge of it, his sodden head poking out, loud, racking, wet coughs of life, the guards arrive.

Then, and only then, the specially armed guards arrive and try to stop Tommy.

They try to stop him.

_**Him**._

"I'LL KILL YOU IF YOU LAY ANOTHER FINGER ON HIM!" Tommy threatens, jabbing his finger in the vague area of the lab coats, mouth frothing, practically. He looks to the boy, who flinches as he spews water from his insides, as he tries to rejoin the living.

"Calm down, Thomas," Dr. Miller states, her voice calm and soothing. "You're upsetting our test subject. Let's not be hasty about what you're thinking of doing."

His green eyes flicker to the boy on the floor, a lab coat reaching for him, their arms covered in a towel. The boy is shivering, tiny and stupid vulnerable. "YOU THINK YOU'VE SEEN HASTY, I'LL JAM THAT STUPID PEN THROUGH YOUR FUCKING JUGULAR BEFORE YOU CAN CALL REINFORCEMENTS SAVE YOU!" One of them flinches. Gotcha, he thinks. "I'LL SPILL YOUR GUTS, I'LL DO IT! YOU BETTER HOPE I NEVER GET FREE. I'LL FIND YOU AND ..."

"Thomas," Dr. Miller barks, as the group of guards box him in, pull him away from the room, from the boy.

The boy, the hallucination, his blue fingers grip the smooth tile floor, wet and slippery with water. Tommy thrashes the guards, trying to get to the boy, to touch his arm, his hand, his hair, anything. He needs to ... he  _wants_  to know if he's real. If anything's real here, it has to be that boy.

That boy is real.

He is real.

Tommy didn't imagine him.

Imaginary boy is real, has real thoughts, has the idea of escaping, of being part of the world again, is willing to escape.

 

So that's what hope feels like.

 

~*~*~*~

 

"I promise," Tommy signs, watching as the girl nods, intent on keeping up. "I will be back for pancakes."

She smiles. "Promise?"

"Promise," he signs, tucking her in. He waits until she's asleep, tucks the bunny at her side and runs out, runs, runs, to the school, to his school.

He's going to pull the best prank in the world.

Tommy Shepherd is going to blow up a patch of his school with fireworks, on the 4th of July.

 

 

"Had to kiss your foster mama good night?" George taunts, a mean smirk on his curled lip. "Else, why'd you be late?"

"Don't blame him," another boy leers. "His foster mama's pretty."

"Yeah, only cos' your real mama ain't a looker," says another.

What did he get himself into?

 

He remembers setting up the fireworks, grinning manically, snickering as some start popping, scaring the others, the older boys. He's the youngest, most to prove, but he's not scared, not flinching. He's in his element: carefully planned chaos. He's planned every possibility down to the smallest thing. Nothing can go wrong.

"Tommy!" Lily shouts, as she runs towards him, past the stacks of fireworks, not hearing the shouts to run, that they would explode in seconds, that she would be ... that ...

That stupid bunny was in her hands.

 

~*~*~*~

 

"You should stay away from me."

The boy glances up, wrists cuffed with some sort of metallic crap that looks like Tommy's collar. "Why?"

"I killed someone," he says, bluntly.

The boy blinks. Tears fill his eyes.

Don't I understand you, Tommy thinks bitterly, thinks and thinks, and thinks.

That's all you can do, in a cage.

Think.

Ponder.

Get crushed by guilt.

Maybe it's only him.

      Maybe it's only him who deserves to be here, in this cage. Maybe it's only him who's ever killed his baby sister, his joyous foster sister, his hope, killed her slowly and painfully, let her bleed out on the grass of his stupid school. Maybe he's the only who was handcuffed as EMTs tried to save her, covered in an orange blanket before he's even in the back of the squad car. He killed her to gain the possibility of the small and short respect of older boys. He killed her.

He.

Killed.

Her.

Maybe it's his own personal hell.

Least he deserves.

"Dr. Miller wants a word with you, Thomas."

Tommy bares his teeth at the solitary camera, forgets anything about retribution, about the boy, about Lily, about the dumb, stupid, idiotic bunny, and just ... exists.

He deserves this.


	2. Mutatis Mutandis Equals Memento Mori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kitty Pryde is an old soul.  
> Maybe she's just tired. Tired of this world and how it just sucks.  
> That might be the whole 'being captured for lab experiments' talking.  
> Resignation, probably.

Subject: Pryde, Katherine

Date of Birth: 02/05/00  
Citizenship: American  
Family: Located and contained  
Location: New Jersey State Institution for Troubled Youth  
Enrollment Date: 01/18/12  
Status: Possible Latent Mutant  
Clearance Level: Alpha  
Abilities: Signs of mutant abilities aside, she is smart.  
Weaknesses: She is a child, her intelligence means nothing without the experience

Notes: With the right motivation, she can be brought to our side. Rewarding her for good behavior with tolerance of her religious observation, which means she gets her locket back. If Dr. Ambrose gives the signal, take it back.

 

      Kitty is smart. This is not bragging. She is ... she's brilliant. Case in point: she's being sent to a fancy boarding school. Her mom bought her these pretty blue trunks and she's going on an adventure. She's going to Hogwarts.

      Okay, so she's not going to Hogwarts, but it's almost as good. She's going going to Xavier's School for Gifted Youth, on a scholarship, one she didn't apply to, because it wasn't one of those types. But she won. She won and now she's going to upstate New York. She's going to Hogwarts!

Hogwarts!

 

"Kitty," her mother admonishes, watching her daughter jump in glee once more. This was not an occasion for joy, she thought, even as her darling Kitty felt nothing but. "Behave. Now, which books do you want to take? No, 'all of them' is not an answer."

"I guess ... this one, and this one, and this one, and oh, mom, I can't leave this one, not ever."

"Kitty."

"Just these. I can send for the rest, right? Like I'll send these back and you'll send me the others? I mean, even though it's only for half a term, because it's .... but you'll do it, right?"

Her mother smiles dimly. "Of course, darling."

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"How did they find me?"

  
**_That's the million dollar question, isn't it?_  **She wonders, sitting listlessly in her cell.

How did they find me?

 

~*~*~*~

 

"Kitty," she says, as she sets her tray on the table. The boy doesn't look up. "Hey, are you okay? Hello?"

"Don't talk to him," the other girl, the only other non robot, says. "Rumor has it his cell mate said something to him."

"Who's his cell mate?" she asks aloud. Internally, she's wondering how she's never met this other cell mate. She thought there was only the two of them, both of the girls.

"Dunno," the girl shrugs.

  
_Jess_ , her mind supplies. "Hey, Jess, question," she says, before the girl stands, leaves, leaves her alone.

Jess raises a brow. "What?" she says, flatly.

"When did you get here?"

The tray falls.

The guards.

All of the guards.

No questions.

Please, no more questions, Dr. Miller repeats.

"Please, no more questions," Kitty nods. repeats.

 

~*~*~*~

 

      When Kitty was eight, she learned about the Holocaust. She learned that history is quick to smooth things over, to pretend it never happened. History is quick to lie and twist the truth. History is not as quick to punish. When Kitty was eight, she learned the world tries so hard to be good and fails.

      When Kitty is young, she learns that they only remember religious people being massacred, they don't remember the other people, the ... 'unmentionables'. They don't mention depressed people, mentally ill people. They don't mention people who love other people, women who don't like boys (good, because they're icky and dumb), or men who don't like women (but they like other men?), or who don't like anyone. They don't mention the Romani, or any of the nomadic people of all countries. They'd rather not.

When Kitty is eight, she feels old.

 

      She feels burdened by all this ... knowledge, she wishes she could float, float away and stop being part of this whole ... mess. She doesn't want to be human if it means ignoring when others ask for help, when you need to help and decide, it's better if you let it be, let them get rid of the 'waste'.

It's the first time she dissolves into nothing.

It's not the last.

 

~*~*~*~

 

"I'm Kitty," she tells the boy, again, except this time he's lucid. "Welcome to Project Wideawake," she adds.

Startled, the boy jolts, looking up at her, as if he was awakened just that second. "Why are we here?"

"Didn't they tell you?"

He shakes his head. "I don't ... it doesn't make sense."

"This is ... well, I don't know where it is, but it's a facility for mutant experimentation. That guy, at the end of the room," she says, pointing across to the door. "He's part of the Mutant Restraint Division."

"What?"

"You're a mutant."

"I think ... I know that," he says wryly. "But I didn't really have time to research my new life."

She gives him a look. "The U.S. Government has been trying to find a way to ... fix this. They're being very uncool German regime about it. You understand, Kaplan."

He blinks, surprised. She pulls out a thin gold chain from inside her shirt, a gold Star of David on the end, before letting it fall back. "Oh."

"It's nice to find another Jewish mutant." She looks around. "Everyone else is ... off."

"What do you mean?"

"They don't seem like real people."

"Are we the ... only ones here?"

Kitty shakes her head. "We have this girl, who's older than us, but she's not allowed outside of her room anymore." Not since I broke her, somehow, last week. "And there are two others, but they're in comas. I pass by them whenever I go back to my room."

"So ... five of us?"

"Six," she corrects, frowning. "I've never actually seen his face, but he's always ... there, in the training rooms."

"Those are ... the ones that let us use our powers, right?" She nods. "Oh."

"He's really fast, too. Usually a blur," she comments, picking at her lunch. "Do they ..." she looks away.

He tugs his sleeve up and slides his arm across, where she can see the needle marks. "They experiment."

"Yeah," she says, softly. He covers his arm again. "They experiment."

He taps his potatoes, taps his slippers, drums his fingers against the table. "Billy," he finally says, strained, as if it took great ...

_Good god, are they already brainwashing them?_

 

At dinner, Billy sits across from Kitty. "It's because of that one law," he says. "The Super Human Registration Act," he adds, as if she had been the new one and not him.

Kitty hums tersely, pointedly staring at him as she says, "Registration today, gas chambers tomorrow."

Billy blinks, cold fear seeping into his body. "It's not like that," he says, weakly. "Our parents know we're here."

"Do they?" she asks, eyes flickering down to her lunch. "My parents sent me to a school in Upstate New York."

"We're in New Jersey," he says, stupidly.

"Exactly," she nods.

He doesn't speak after that.

She doesn't feel proud of that.

 

~*~*~*~

  
Kitty tugs on other boy's sleeve, the cell mate of Billy. This is the one who has a hat, or maybe it's a helmet, on always. Kitty kind of wants to ask, but she doesn't really want the answer. "You're going to need to be faster," she tells him, as she she looks at the bland lunch choices. "I heard the guards talking. If you don't go faster, they'll give Billy more appointments with Miller."  
Tommy glares at her. "I don't care," he hisses, yanking his hand back. "That's his problem and not mine."  
"Billy thinks you're on our side," she says, coldly, as she frowns at the choices, at him, and leaves. She leaves before her tiny preteen hands clench into fists and attack the boy with the helmet.

 

      It takes two weeks before Billy reaches Dr. Miller again, and he has no idea why. Kitty merely hums whenever he brings it up at lunch, doesn't look at the tired speedster on the other edge of the cafeteria. But she notices how Billy slips him his food. He already eats very little, apparently getting nourishment from the electrical bolts they slam him with on a thrice daily basis, but he gives Tommy half of his rations. The guards look away, everyone looks away.  
Rations, Kitty thinks with derision. That Moira woman was right after all.

Registration first, gas chambers next.

Kitty so very much hopes gas chambers aren't in her future.


	3. Strikes The Same Place Twice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Headaches are headaches are headaches, or so the doctors tell him. Billy is pretty sure once you get to the part where he's hallucinating a lady in red and a specific bench in Central Park, you're past headaches.  
> It feels like he's ... on fire.  
> No.  
> He feels like he's being electrocuted.

Subject: Kaplan, William

Date of Birth: 06/28/98  
Citizenship: American  
Family: Located and contained  
Location: New Jersey State Institution for Troubled Youth  
Enrollment Date: 06/16/12  
Status: Active Mutant  
Clearance Level: Alpha  
Abilities: Electrical type of powers, can overcharge items around, is practically a walking reactor; intelligent  
Weaknesses: William has 'good' morals, believes in heroes, likes helping other people.

Notes: He will be hard to break. Dr. Ambrose requests you use the Shepherd boy to your advantage here. They seem to work better together.

 

 

      He’s half asleep and completely dead tired the first time he feels it. At first, he just chalks it up to the lack of sleep caused by midnight premieres of a certain comic book inspired movie. At first, it started small, just a tug some where at the edge of his mind, gone as quickly as it had come. He ignored it, considering he was tired and had more important things to do, to avoid. Like Kessler, for instance. The next few times, it hits him like a shovel to the head and he's gripping the edge of his locker, the door frame, a light post, anything. He clenches his teeth from the pain and tells his parents, who send him to the doctors, all who say it's just a mild case of migraines. They package up some pills and send him on his way. The headaches stop and he's fine, for a little while. The hallucinating his favorite superheroine, The Scarlet Witch, that's a thing he should tell his parents, tell someone. He doesn't.

      Instead of telling someone, he zaps John Kessler, the bully, who had found another victim. The whole point of not telling was that Billy was keeping it together even with headaches. He only had a few more years of high school, and he would be home free. That's what he told himself. College was supposed to be more inviting and respectful of this sort of thing. At the very least, he'd be far away from the Kesslers of the world. So he ignores the warning signs for what they are: warning him.  
      Ignoring something does not mean it will go away, no matter how much you wish it. So when he does _that_... when he apparently attacks Kessler, he goes home. He passes by his neighbor, Mrs. Carson, who says something about tea for headaches and he nods, pain coursing through his body. He feels like a live wire, electric. He feels like he's gone through a battle with Thor, for all the lightning the Norse god had at his disposal. He doesn't remember much else from that day.  
      He doesn't remember much of that week, really. He remembers he goes to The Place, that bench in Central Park that haunts his painful dreams, and comes home to a government agency. He comes home to all those agents at his home, with contracts and papers and legal things he doesn't want to think about. Luckily, he parents aren't home, he's safe. For now, no one else knows about this. No one else knows that he's sent a boy to the hospital.  
He doesn't want to think about it.

He doesn't want to think about anything else. So for the next five hours, until his parents come home, he stares at his room.  
“Is everything okay, Billy?” his mother calls out, knocking as she enters. “Are you sick?”  
“I’m fine,” he replies softly. “I just …”  
“You can do a mental health day, tomorrow, if you want. We'll call the school. Your father has the day off. You two can talk or something,” she hums. “You know,” she smiles, “the normal things.”  
“No, I’m fine,” Billy shrugs, as he pulls himself up from the bed. “I’m going to get ready for bed now, Mom.”  
“You look a little peaky,” she says with a tone of finality, as she leaves. 

~*~*~*~

      They were locked in a room, one for each new 'conquest', where they were allowed to move exactly one inch in each direction. They were made to stay there for almost three months, their food delivered by a robot wearing a platter, who then set the tray in between the slit open in the door. The first few days, Billy refused to cooperate with the staff. He still had hope, still thought that his parents would rescue him. He waited, bearing the scorn of the terrifying staff. For three months, Billy never saw another being. He withdrew into himself, more so than before. He had vivid fantasies where he was free, where his parents came to save him, where he found ... But it wasn't true, he had to tell himself, remind every single hour. He couldn't make that true, it would ruin things. Real is the cage, real is the hurt and pain.

  
But pain, real pain ... it came next.

  
"This may not be ordinary, as you are used to a much different lifestyle," the scientist hums, as she cuffs Billy to the sterile, cold, metallic bed. "But do not fret, this too will become your ordinary. I promise you."

 

      The room with the pool beneath the tiles, where they dunked him. It was for research, they said, as they closed it back over his flailing, drowning, arms. It was for research, he tries to remind himself, as he feels his lungs fill with water, as his body fills with some sort of energy, unspent, coiling under his skin, itching to set free.  
Electricity, it seems, does not want to work under water.

~*~*~*~ 

“What are you in here for?” a voice calls out.  
      Billy tries opening his eyes; one of them is swollen shut. His throat hurts from screaming, from begging for help, mercy, for a lot of things. One of the guards had laughed, he remembers that. Said there wasn’t going to be any help, that he was doomed. Billy can deal with doomed. It implies some sort of future. Implications are things Billy likes, can twist into his own … ideals.  
      But his ribs hurt and his face hurts and his legs feel like someone ran them over. Scratch that, he feels like his entire body was run over. He should just go back to sleep, try to get some rest, preferably without moving.  
“I asked you a question,” a voice calls out, again. It’s a Jersey accent, Billy can tell. “Are you even alive?”  
Billy winces preemptively, already poised for the pain he’s going to inflict on himself as he turns to the voice. “Who’s there?” he gasps, pain filling his every senses.  
“I asked a question first.”  
"I am," he replies, glaring at ... nothing.  
"Well, so am I," the voice replies. “Hate to break it to you, but chances are … you’re probably a mutant.” __  
 **I wish I was a mutant.  
Trust me, Billy, you don’t want that. People would want to hit you more if you were.  
**“You’re kidding me,” he gasps, as black creeps into the edge of his eyesight.  
“Not even a little,” the voice snorts. “This whole place, it’s a fa …”

 ~*~*~*~

      As Billy shivers inside a soft towel, trembling with both fear and the cold seeping into him, he thinks, is this meant to be one of those situations? His eyes meet his so-called savior, the boy. Green eyes glare at him, flickering between Billy's own eyes and the doctors, as he spews insults and threats.  
Is he supposed to feel grateful to this boy, who looks half mad?  
"You're safe now, William."  
Yes, yes it is one of those situations.

      They hand him wrist cuffs, ones that hum with energy, someone telling him to channel his feelings, his hurt, his very life into it. It will work, they assure him. You will never be able to hurt anyone else again. We have helped you, they say, and for a few seconds, his mind accepts that. Billy thinks, yes, they will help me. They are helping me. I am grateful to them.  
I am grateful for _this_.  
His hands clench and the cuffs turn bright blue.  
"Good," one of them says, softly, sweetly. Billy tries not to preen.  
He tries not to feel good about this. 

~*~*~*~

"Dr. Miller wants to have a session with you," the voice booms out. "You will cooperate fully," it continues.  
Billy wonders, once again, how he could even possibly do anything but cooperate.  
"You could refuse to stick your hands out to be cuffed," Tommy, the voice in his head, the one posing as one of  
the cell mates, as another trapped here, states.  
"Why would I do that?" he asks, curiously. "Don't they punish you for that?"  
"You're still young, Billy buddy," Tommy snorts. "You have much to learn." The door's hatch opens and Billy sticks his hands out, ready to be cuffed.  
He wasn't always like this.  
Was he? 

~*~*~*~

He is struck immobile, speechless.

That ...

That is Captain America.

Right there.

On the screen, alive.

Or maybe it's a Life Model Decoy.

No.

Yes?

 

"William, where are you going?" his father demands, yanking him back, away from the door. "It's World War III and you're going OUT?"  
Billy shakes his head. "I'm sorry."  
Iron Man's repulsors sound, all the way over here, and he thinks, we're in the middle, we're going to die, my god, this is not the way I wanted to go.  
This is not the way I thought I'd die.  
This is not the way _we_ imagined.

 

"William, get away from the window!"  
"Billy," his mother scolds, yanking him away. "It's god knows what out there. Understand ..."  
He nods, glances at the tv. He hadn't even noticed he was walking to the window, to the door, to anything.  
The roof, though, that's a thing.  
      His red sweater flutters behind him, like a cape, the gentle breeze flicking it side to side, like a white flag, like a damn 'come hither' to the aliens. It's better than screaming fresh blood, come and get it. It's better than most things, he thinks. His family is safe, this time. His mom shouts, but she's safe. His twin baby brothers are safe in his father's clutches. They're downstairs, safe.  
Safe.  
He takes a deep breath.  
He can stop this.  
He can do it.  
Billy Kaplan can do this.  
William Kaplan _will_ do this.  
William was born to do this, to help the world.  
He is the son of great people.  
The ring around his neck glows red, red like the powers. _  
 **Everyone would be so proud.  
**_ He jumps and ... 

~*~*~*~

He turns to Tommy, who is already blinking in dark, at Billy, as if expecting it. He should. This is a long time coming.  
"I know Kitty said something to you, about Dr. M."  
"She doesn't like me."  
Billy glares at him. "Tommy, don't lie to me. She told you."  
"Why would she tell me anything?"  
"Because we're friends and she's the only one I told, so she must have told you."  
"She didn't tell me anything," he states, looking away, even if the other boy can't see him. "She complained about the damn holidays she was missing and I told her to shut up."  
"Really," he asks, flatly.  
"Look, ask her yourself. I don't have anything to do with whatever you think I did."  
Billy pauses, peering into the darkness. He's surprised they still let them stay, together, when all they do is talk after lights out. It seems like a security concern. Tommy throws something at the wall. Billy falters, shaken from his thoughts, from his concerns. "Thanks, Tommy, for what it's worth."  
"We're on the same side, aren't we?"  
"Are we?"  
"I'm on their side, not by choice, Billy." Something flickers in Tommy's eyes, an emotion flits across his face for a second, he looks ... guilty. "But if I could choose, it'd be your side."  
Billy sighs, too soft for his cell mate to hear. "Good."


	4. Ghosts Girls and Rumored Replacements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caring is for people who can afford it. Tommy can't afford shit, let alone worrying about someone else. Probably get them killed. Especially since this dump wants to add new kids. Somehow, that doesn't make Tommy feel any better.

So the boy is real.

Awesome.

 

Not awesome.

The Jewish Ghost Girl keeps ragging on him about the boy.

Billy.

Psh.

As if he cared about the kid's name. Billy's name.

He likes The Kid better than Billy.  
Billy implies he cares.

He doesn't care. Not about this kid named Billy.

No sirree.

      Thomas Shepherd doesn't care. He doesn't give a rat's ass about this dumb boy with hope in his eyes and decent sarcasm in his tone, with cheeriness and happy memories. He couldn't give two shits about this boy, the one who attacked his bully, who acted in self-defense. He couldn't care less for this boy, because he doesn't care about this boy. It's probably some sort of bullshit transference thing or something. In this place, caring gets you killed. Hell, in any place, it gets you killed. He's learned that, in all the juvie halls and with ... all it does is give you pain. So he doesn't care, not about this boy. The boy who thinks space is interesting and awe-inspiring, not a place full of enemies.

_Damn it._

He cares.

 

~*~*~*~

 

"If I did care," he says to the Ghost Girl, super casual-like. "What would I have to do?"

She doesn't even blink. "You have to run at your top speed."

"I don't know it."

"Hence, run as fast as you can during your next session."

"They'll leave him alone?"

"For a while," she concedes. "That's what they told me. You can ask them."

"You mean, I can threaten them."

"That too," she allows, smiling thinly. "But he's nice. Surprised you didn't go off the deep end."

"Why?"

"He looks like you."

"No, he doesn't."  
Ghost girl gives him a look. "Okay." She looks at her fruit cup, looks at her plastic, white spoon, looks back up at him. “It’s been said that if you were to meet yourself without mirrors or photographs, you wouldn’t recognize yourself.”

"You're saying ... no. He's not ... I'm an only child, G.G."

"He looks like you."

"I have green eyes."

"He has blue. It's not that far off."

"My hair is white, thanks to the damn chemicals they've fed me. His is brown."

"Reddish brown," she corrects before looking behind him. "He's coming. You don't have to do this."

"Yeah, I do."

"He's not your ..."

"I promised him," Tommy lies. He didn't promise him. He promised Lily. It's the same thing.

 

~*~*~*~

 

      It’s another bad day. Billy can feel it, feel it in his bones like he feels the earth swaying under his grip, whenever he touches the floor.  Or so he tells Tommy. Tommy thinks it's all bullshit. But the boy has some sort of magnetic power, so maybe he really _can_ feel the Earth's magnetic pull.

“Did you ever have a crush?” Billy asks him, in the quiet of it all.

“I liked this girl, Amy … something. I can’t remember. It’s not worth remembering.”

Billy bites his lower lip, wincing when he feels the raw skin break and blood trickles down slowly. Tommy watches as he presses his sleeve on it, mumbles something. He pulls back the sleeve, spotless and his lip is fine. Tommy ignores that.  
The Kid's always doing weird stuff like that. “I had a crush on someone.”

“Oh?”

“He was on the basketball team,” he says nervously.

Tommy is silent. He glances down at the puzzle they're allowed to work with, at the ugly cardboard. He could totally finish this in five seconds, but the kid likes taking time. Lifetimes. But still, the kid at a game. Would he go alone? Did he have friends? Did they know about ... him? Would they laugh at him behind his back? Did he even have a good friend in that shitty school?

“Tommy?”

“Hold on, I’m trying to imagine dorky little you at a basketball game.”

“Shut up,” he says, relieved.

“Was he cute or was he like really hot, like me?”

Billy snorts. “He had a girlfriend, I think.”

“Ouch,” Tommy huffs. “Tough break, Billy Buddy,” he adds.

“Yeah,” Billy nods, kicking the table's leg, as if jittery.

“Tell me all about my future brother in law,” Tommy jokes.

Billy nods. “He had these blue eyes … and he had blonde hair.”

“Aw, you’re into Captain America lookalikes? That’s adorable, Billy.”

“And he had ear piercings, okay?”

“So you’re into bad boys? Such a rebel, baby bro.”

Billy scowls. “And I saw him once or twice at the comic book store. Maybe,” he says, frowning. “I couldn't really tell, because Jimmy pulled me out so quickly. There were bullies in there, from his school and mine.”

“Jimmy?”

“Best friend, transferred when it got too tough.”

“It wasn't just a one-time thing, the bullying, was it?”

“No.”

“God, Billy, it’s a wonder you didn't snap and kill them all.”

“I didn't kill anyone,” he hisses.

Tommy hums in agreement. “Which is why it’s a wonder to me you never did. You’re really that pure of heart, Billy.”

“Thank you?”

“It won’t do you any good here.”

“I know.”

“They’d sooner use it against you.”

“ _I know_.”

“Keep it to yourself.”

“ ** _I know_**.”

“Good."

 

~*~*~*~

 

“If I ever escaped, I’d go to get some food, real food.”

“I’d check into a hotel, take a shower, by myself, with no guards and no timing and nothing.”

Tommy snorts. “That sounds good too. But you’d need money.”

“Totally abuse my powers to get me a room, Tommy, don’t think I wouldn't.”

A guard passes by, his electric baton tapping each door, a reminder, a warning. Billy feels him walk down the hall, just like he knows Tommy can.

“I’d take you with me,” Tommy says, softly.

“What?”

“If I ever left, I’d take you with me. And that Kit girl, too.”

“You get me out, get Kitty, and I’ll try to get Jess out."

“Huh. Okay. We’ll make a break for it, all of us.”

“Not all of us,” Billy murmurs.

“Those two kids in the comas won’t be worth us taking, they’re brain dead. They’re lucky,” Tommy presses. “We can’t help them.”

“I know, but …”

“Focus on who we can take.”

“Okay,” he whispers, brokenly.

“Focus on survivors, not the dead,” Tommy states, anger filling the words. “We can’t …”

“I know,” Billy says numbly. “Still …”

“I know,” Tommy repeats and the lights flicker, a warning.

Billy doesn't speak anymore and Tommy doesn't try.

 

~*~*~*~

 

"There are a few new kids. They're being treated like humans."

"So?" Tommy spits out, angry. He ran as fast as he could for ten hours just so he could keep Billy safe. But he was exhausted and the damn kid didn't understand that.

"They're from space."

He blinks. Aliens. Billy sure knew how to bury the lead. "So they can come and go as they please?"

"No, they ... space radiation. One of them can turn into fire and another one turns invisible and creates force fields."

"Like Kit," Tommy says, confused.

"Yeah, but not like her. It's ... and the other one stretches, like an insane amount and the other one is literally a giant rock. You didn't see them?"

"No."

"I'll tell you the rest tomorrow."

"You can tell me now, doofus. I'm not going to sleep with you vibrating with excitement over there."

He hears Billy sigh, loud and cheery.

Good.

Cheery is good.

Even if it hurts Tommy's lungs sometimes.

~*~*~*~

"Do you ever think, maybe it could have been different? That maybe we wouldn't be here, we'd be ... out there?"

"No," Tommy replies, watching as Billy snorts.

"Yeah, me neither," he hums, as his fingers curl around the wall.

~*~*~*~

"You hear the rumors?" he asks, stumbling over the words. It's been a few weeks since he's seen Billy. He got punished after his failed attempt at The Lab. He got sent to the catacombs, or wherever the fucking solitary cells are, probably basement.

"What rumors?" Billy asks, yawning. "Why are they sleep depriving me?"

"They did the same to me. Still are," he amends. "NYC facility, for those who need help with their powers," he elaborates. "Did you?"

"No."

" _Billy_."

"Dr. Miller wasn't impressed with my last test. Kitty, when I last saw her, said she thought we'd have evals, but ..."

"Billy, focus."

"I am!" he hisses. "They've been keeping me here, and Kitty isn't allowed to talk to me and Jess hates me. Those freakishly close four aren't even looking in our direction and none of the staff talks to me! I'm getting worried!"

"I'll fail my next test. It'll be good because I failed the last one too."

"You can't just ... follow me."

"Well, I'm not letting you leave. Besides, how else are you going to break out?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: the Storm twins are a whirlwind adventure all on their own. Grimm takes his self-appointed job as Genius' Bodyguard so seriously, five facility guards, a table, and two doctors are broken. Also, Jess figures out an important piece of the puzzle, a little too late. Featuring: Silly Putty Reed Richards and Solitary Lock Up Kitty Pryde.

**Author's Note:**

> Up next: Kitty quotes Moira MacTaggert and befriends the new guy ... who looks familiar, somehow.


End file.
